1. Must be a FILIPINO citizen
2. Must be permanently residing or currently based in the Philippines
3. At least a Senior High School Student
4. With or without prior knowledge on data science

You may submit scanned copy of any of the following documents depending on your level of education:

Senior High School Level

• Diploma
• Valid School ID
• Certification of Enrollment (from school registrar)
• Form 137

College Level

• Diploma
• Valid School ID
• Certification of Enrollment (from school registrar)
• Transcript of Records (TOR)

College Graduate or Higher

• Diploma
• Certification of Graduation
• Valid PRC ID

The review and verification of applications will take three (3) to five (5) days, depending on the number of interested learners a day. You will receive an email from Coursebank regarding the status of your application through learn@coursebank.ph or you may also check from your SPARTA Profile if your application has been approved.

There are cases wherein applicants do not receive any updates or notification via email, so kindly check your spam or junk mail folder or add learn@coursebank.ph to your email contacts or approved senders list.

Note: It is highly recommended that each applicant complies with the requirements of the program by sending correct and updated documents. We carefully review all the credentials that you submit, so your application may be on PENDING status if there are further verification needed, and REJECTED if you did not meet the minimum requirements of the project.

Scholars under other DOST scholarship programs are allowed to join SPARTA based on previous projects.

You need to completely update your information to prevent your application or course access to be rejected or revoked.Rejection and revocation may also happen if you submit incorrect and incomplete documents during registration.

There can be several reasons why you did not receive any email from Coursebank.

• There was a typo or error in the email address when you registered on coursebank.ph.
• For some reason, you might not have successfully registered an account on coursebank.ph.
• The email message was caught by your spam filter.
• Your email provider might have blocked the automated email message.

Here's what you can do:

• Check your spam or junk mail folder for an email from learn@coursebank.ph
• Add learn@coursebank.ph to your email contacts or approved senders list.

Still having problems? Email Coursebank at learn@coursebank.ph or answer their Learner Support Request Form.

There is NO travel bond for SPARTA scholars within six (6) months after taking SPARTA scholarship, they only need to declare the travel in the DOST-SEI TRACER form.

To fully withdraw from your scholarship, kindly submit a withdrawal letter in PDF format to Coursebank’s Learner Support Request Form. Address the letter to the following:

ALAN S. CAJES, PhD Senior Executive Fellow and SPARTA Project Lead Development Academy of the Philippines

JAMES DIMACULANGAN Chief Executive Officer Coursebank

The letter should include your reason for withdrawal along with your attached signature.

Your progress in your courses will be voided. Your financial aid eligibility for other DOST programs might also be affected as well as your participation in other upskilling programs offered by the partner agencies. The decision for the financial aid eligibility will, however, be under DOST's discretion.

The scholarship is not available to OFWs as it requires residence in the country. However, OFWs can still enroll in the courses if they pay. For further questions on the payment process, kindly send Coursebank an email at learn@coursebank.ph

SPARTA’s main pathways have more required courses as compared to the microspecialization pathways. The latter is composed of 4-5 courses which upon completion, would provide the scholars the necessary skills for specific specializations such as data governance, project management, and computing.

In addition, scholars need to enroll in a main pathway in order to access the microspecialization pathways.

Upon enrollment in a course, you will have six (6) months to finish it and you must avoid a three (3) month inactivity. Otherwise, your course progress will be considered void, and you will need to re-enroll in the course if you wish to continue with your learning pathway.

The project is expected to end on November 14, 2022, so scholars must finish their enrolled pathways and courses by this period.

SPARTA’s courses can now be accessed via a self-enrollment feature. This allows scholars to take courses without the use of enrollment codes. Check the following links for the detailed application (bit.ly/sparta-application-process) and enrollment (bit.ly/sparta-enrollment-process) process.

TBA stands for “To Be Announced.” Courses that have this status are still in production.

A capstone course is the final requirement needed to be taken by scholars to complete their main pathway. This is only open to scholars who finished all their core and/or elective pathway courses.

Enrollment is by invitation only. However, if you have already completed your main pathway’s required courses and still haven’t received an invitation, then fill out the Learner Support Request Form or send Coursebank an email at learn@coursebank.ph

Audit courses are free versions of paid or verified courses. Learners who opt to take these courses will not be provided with certificates unless they are a scholar or they have paid to gain verified access.

Check this link (bit.ly/sparta-certificates) for the step-by-step guide of generating signed SPARTA certificates.

Note for Coursebank certificates: The system checks every day for learners who have completed and passed courses so you should be able to see your certificate within 48 to 72 hours after completing a course, given that you have a passing grade of seventy percent (70%). Your document will automatically be uploaded in your dashboard.

Scholars are not required to complete a capstone course to obtain their microspecialization pathway certificate. Check this link (bit.ly/sparta-certificates) for the step-by-step guide of generating signed SPARTA certificates.

Honor code is an agreement between the scholar, SPARTA, and Coursebank that requires the learner to take the courses with integrity, while Honor Certificates are given to scholars who have successfully accomplished free courses like SP101 and FOI 101.

SPARTA courses and pathways are not equivalent to any academic degree. However, you can use them as additional documents to complement your skills and knowledge in DSA and list them as your credentials.

For failed courses, kindly request for reconsideration by sending Coursebank an email at learn@coursebank.ph or answering their Learner Support Request Form.

You need to answer Coursebank's Learner Support Request Form to process your request. Please keep in mind that the team only allows a one-time pathway change.

You can check the details about the different pathways at https://coursebank.ph/sparta/.

You must also take into account other factors such as your interests, strengths, aspirations, and roles in the organization where they belong. For example,

• Data Engineer if you are good in programming;
• Data Scientists if you are good in math and statistics;
• Functional/Data Analyst if you are a business-savvy individual;
• Analytics Manager if you have experience in project management;
• Data Steward if you want to safeguard data in your organization; and
• Data Associate if you are a beginner and have no prior experience or knowledge in Data Science and Analytics

In addition, learners can complement their main pathway with a microspecialization pathway of their liking.

There is no tiering system among the pathways. Instead, they are grouped into role-specific categories, as stated below:

• Analytics beginner: Data Associate
• Functional or business Oriented: Data Steward, Data Analyst and Analytics Manager
• Highly Technical: Data Engineer and Data Scientist

Scholars are allowed to take one main pathway and one microspecialization pathway at a time.

We also recommend taking only one course at a time to stay focused and motivated. This can lead to easier completion of your enrolled pathway.

Yes, they will be credited in the pathway that you have shifted, provided that these courses are also located in your new pathway.

The system checks every day for learners who have completed and passed courses so you should be able to see your certificate within 48 to 72 hours after completing a course, given that you have a passing grade of seventy percent (70%). Your document will automatically be uploaded in your dashboard.

Please take note that our courses are self-paced. It usually takes a few days to have your assignment graded. If it takes more than a week, contact Coursebank through their Learner Support Request Form.

Thank you for your interest in Project SPARTA! Kindly send us an email at sparta@dap.edu.ph regarding your intention to become one of our partners.

The Department of Science and Technology requires a six (6)-month service obligation to render service to any government and/or private offices in the country.

The RSA will be tracked through a DOST Tracer Form which will be filled out by the scholars.

The RSA will start after a scholar's pathway completion.

Scholars who withdrew from the scholarship are not required to render the RSA.

Scholars who fail to finish their pathway are not required to render the RSA.

There is no direct penalty for not completing the program but the project team is required to submit a graduate tracer study to DOST at the end of the project’s three (3)-year period, where a record of graduates who were not able to comply with the service obligation, failed to complete the program, and withdrew or canceled the program will be included. This, in turn, may affect future financial aid eligibility to other DOST programs. The decision for the financial aid eligibility will, however, be under DOST's discretion.

You can view the required specifications of the devices needed for each SPARTA course by visiting each description at https://coursebank.ph/courses.

In addition, following are the minimum computer specifications to optimize your experience in Coursebank:

• Operating System: Any Modern OS (Windows, Mac, Linux)
• Processor: Intel i3 that run around 1.3GHz
• Memory: 4GB of RAM
• Browser: Any Modern Browser (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari)
• Internet Connection: 3-5 mbps

The courses can be credited as training courses. The equivalent hours are indicated in the course certificates.

You can join the competitions as long as you meet the following criteria:

• Any Filipino Citizen residing in the Philippines
• At least senior high school students
• Individuals with different levels of Data Science and Analytics proficiency

SPARTA learners are highly encouraged to join.

1. Register by signing up and creating an account in the SPARTA portal. Simply fill-out all the required fields. Please note that registration should be done only once per participant in the portal system. This will grant you your unique user account you can use to either join or create a team.
2. Choose the challenges that you would like to compete in. You can join as an individual or create a team of up to 5 members.
3. Join and submit your entries under your chosen challenges. Please be reminded that users can only join one team which can participate in multiple challenges.

Yes, it is possible to withdraw from the competition. Participants should email the following details to sparta@dap.edu.ph:

• Name
• Email Address
• Team Name
• Competition (Hackathon or Open Data Challenge)
• Reasons for withdrawing

You can join both competitions at the same time.

For SPARTA learners, you may use your entries as a substitute to your capstone project, provided that you reach the pitch stage of the competition. Please coordinate with Coursebank by sending them an email at learn@coursebank.ph for steps, process, and procedures of availment.

Send an email to sparta@dap.edu.ph if you encounter any technical issues such as log-in problems.